Old boy fixing of BBC needs to end

The appointment of the new Director General at the BBC must be an open process rather than the current backroom dealing underway. OurBeeb is trying to make this happen - and you can help.

Image: Political Betting

As the BBC Trust gathers to consider how to appoint a
new Director General, there is one thing everyone can do to save the BBC from
another secretive, closed-door fix.

However good the person is who is selected
in this way they are bound to fail and those hostile to public service
broadcasting will rejoice. Any ‘insider’ is bound to be a
traditionalist seeking to get a “grip” on management and providing “leadership”
- without being part of the process that really needs to be embraced if the BBC
is to flourish.

The process they ned to embrace is called many things, such as the public in the age of the web,
or openness, creative energy in a global world, or accountability… and it needs one thing – shared principles. Shared, that is, by
the BBC and the public at large. A multi-national British public that is
radical in its embrace of technology and the new energies and potential it
brings.

Some of us have joined a petition from OurBeeb designed to help achieve this. It calls on all candidates to publish their vision and
principles for the BBC. It is here on Change.Org. Drafted mid-week already it is supported by
journalists and dramatists including Richard Eyre, who was on the BBC's old
Board of Governors for 9 years, Philip Pullman, Juliet Stevenson, Brian Eno and
columnists from the Observer, Telegraph, Daily Mail, the Independent and
openDemocracy - which hosts OurBeeb.

It is important for three reasons.

First,
it is easily achievable because eminently
reasonable and hard to oppose, whether you are from the left or right
(both Iain Dale and Suzanne Moore are early supporters). A change that is actually achievable is
radical by the very fact of coming from outside if the organisation, like the BBC, is a closed one. Our cry is that if someone wants to be a
candidate they should publish a short statement of how they want to take the
BBC forward and why. How reasonable is that! Whether the candidates want to do this or not, the Trust should
demand it of those it short-lists and publish them before it
makes its choice.

The senior BBC journalists I’ve
talked say, “Of course”.

Second, the BBC has an internal culture that is closed, defensive and
self-regarding. The last thing it wants is constructive public debate
that might be an influence on its thinking.This needs to change. The Evening Standard headlined a piece saying I wanted everyone to vote for the next DG as if I was Tessa
Jowell. This proposal is nothing of the sort. But it will force the BBC to look
outwards.

Third, there is an incredibly important reason for demanding a shared debate about where the BBC should go from here. The era
of traditional, one-to-many radio and TV broadcasting is drawing to an end.
This fact underlies the BBC’s funding problems, as the growth in its traditional revenues dries up.

But
how should it rethink its way
forward in the coming digital era? The answer must include the arguments
of those who are not
traditional journalists, or programme makers, or managers. Without any
openness of its own it will fail to engage with the openness that is
integral to new media.

This
is why it is urgent that the process of selecting
a new DG shares the practical, competing visions of the candidates with
the
public. The BBC must turn away from its closed
mentality and embrace a role that engages with the public over its future. If you
want great, creative programmes on the BBC, fine public service
broadcasting with integrity and originality, and the technology for
making and
sharing them that is expanding not shrinking… sign the petition.

The
petition:

“The new
Director General of the BBC will be heading Britain’s most important cultural institution
and current affairs broadcaster. He or she should not be appointed by the
traditional, established closed-door process, which has just failed. We
therefore call on the BBC Trust not to compound this by a further purely
secretive appointment. We call on any candidates to publish a short outline of
their vision of how the BBC should be taken forward and the principles that lie
behind it. And we call on the Trustees who will make the appointment to request
and publish such statements from those they consider or short-list. In this way
the BBC will move towards the transparency and openness it needs to
retain public trust."

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 licence.
If you have any queries about republishing please contact us.
Please check individual images for licensing details.